Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — Hiring is picking up, and consumer confidence and the housing market are showing
signs of life. However, the U.S. economy still is lumbering to reach a full recovery, posing a
political threat to President Barack Obama as he travels to Illinois today to deliver what the
White House bills as a major speech on the economy.

The speech comes as some economic indicators continue to show only modest rebounds and months
before Obama and Republican lawmakers face a renewed clash over spending and the federal
budget.

But Obama and his aides said the speech comes as the economy is stabilizing after a deep
descent, giving the president an opportunity to offer his vision for restoring the middle class’s
ability to achieve the American Dream.

“This is a long-term project,” press secretary Jay Carney said yesterday. “It’s not enough just
to see the stock market bounce back. We need to do more.”

The speech comes six months into Obama’s second term, which has been buffeted by a series of
what Carney called “fake scandals,” as well as a failed effort to secure gun-control legislation.
White House aides say the speech gives Obama an opportunity to refocus attention on the
economy.

But the public remains skeptical.

“The public view is that we’re still on pretty rocky ground,” said Carroll Doherty, an associate
director at the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which measures perceptions of
economic news and opinions about the national economy. A survey Pew released yesterday shows that
44 percent of Americans say it will be a “long time” before the economy fully recovers — though the
recession officially ended in 2009.

“Job growth has been steady but not overwhelming and not nearly enough to budge these
perceptions,” Doherty said. Obama’s overall job rating in the poll, which was more positive than
negative in both May and June, now is evenly divided: 46 percent approve of his job performance
while 46 percent disapprove.

Although some indicators including new job growth have improved, Scott Anderson, the chief
economist of San Francisco-based Bank of the West, said projections of the gross domestic product —
the sum of goods and services in the U.S. economy — remain below the rate necessary for a full
recovery.

“That’s not the direction you want to go, and it’s a bit troublesome and problematic for the
president,” Anderson said.

The effort to reframe the debate over the economy comes as Obama and Congress appear poised for
a new round of battles over raising the debt ceiling — a fight that was expected to happen over the
summer but that has been pushed into the fall.

White House aides insisted that today’s speech will look beyond congressional budget squabbles
and won’t serve as a to-do list for Congress. Obama’s past efforts to goose the economy met with
considerable opposition from House Republicans.